Lifeboat Ethics

Although the idea dates back at least as far as the eighteenth century, the term “lifeboat ethics” denotes a position first proposed by influential Texan ecologist Garrett Hardin (1915–2003), whose ethical perspective traces back to the tragedy of the commons. A paradox of rationality and virtue, the tragedy of the commons is what happens when a plethora of people, all acting out of short-term rational self-interest, degrade, destroy, or deplete a common resource – resulting in a consequence that is not in anyone’s long-term self-interest.

In two substantially identical essays published in 1974, Hardin used a lifeboat metaphor as an alternative to the then-popular metaphor of “spaceship earth.” The spaceship earth metaphor, he argued, makes sense only if all on the spaceship are under the control of one captain, for the notion of a spaceship that runs by committee, or through democratic elections, is senseless. The metaphor ignores salient features of the actual world in order to lend...